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By the time we’re done, I’m completely spent. I’ve never felt so exhausted in my life before. I’m on the edge of chafing, and though we’re definitely done, the sex marathon finally over, his hands still don’t leave my body. Even when his breath goes steady and he’s asleep, he’s still touching me.
The clock glows red on the bedside table. It’s a little past four in the morning.
I have to be at work in two hours.
“Shit,” I whisper to myself. He doesn’t stir. Some self-loathing rolls into my throat as I think back on what I just did, but I can’t let myself go down that road. I enjoyed having sex with him and that’s fine—it doesn’t make me a bad person. I nudge him a little, just to see if he reacts, but there’s nothing.
I slip out of bed and gather up my clothes. I don’t know how I feel. Strange, like I’m not myself, but also happy and spent. I pull on my bra and dress in the dark. I’m still wearing the necklace—it’ll have to be cleaned because I’m pretty sure he got cum on it. Nana will never find out. I use the toilet in total silence then stand next to the bed, staring at the Rolex discarded on the floor next to his shoes.
It’s right there.
The watch I came here for.
I just enjoyed a few hours of sin, fucking, sucking, getting fucked, riding, basically doing every filthy thing I’ve ever imagined, and that’s my reward. That watch can save my life. Saul’s dick was great for a few hours, but that watch means so much more. It’s rent, it’s food, it’s medicine. It’s everything.
I don’t want it.
This room feels gross now. All that sex, only to still be right back where I was before I met him. Poor, desperate, pathetic enough to steal from a stranger. It doesn’t matter if the money isn’t for me. Nobody’s going to feel sorry for some loser girl from a crappy family with a worthless sob story. But at this point, I’ve gotten very good at taking all my shame and shoving it deep down inside of me, hidden away, buried under obligations and stress.
Nana needs the money. Jason needs it even more. If I don’t take that watch, they’ll suffer. And all for what? Because I’m too proud? Because Saul fucked me so good I’m ruined for other men forever?
None of that matters.
I still don’t want to take the watch. Stealing from him now would mean the ultimate transgression and it would mean that I’m officially too far gone to be salvaged.
Saul stirs. He takes a breath and rolls onto his side, away from me. Almost giving me tacit permission, like in sleep he’s letting this happen.
A guy like him won’t miss a watch. He probably has a dozen more just like it. But to me, that watch is everything. It’s the difference between making rent for the next few months and being able to afford Nana’s and Jason’s medications.
I bend over and pick it up.
Saul doesn’t move as I turn away, leave his bedroom, hurry out the front door, and summon an Uber with my phone. I get the cheapest one available. The watch feels like lead in my small clutch as I head back home.
Tonight taught me something important. There’s no such thing as rock bottom. There’s no such thing as a hell underneath it.
Because there’s always a way to get even lower.
Chapter 5
Saul
She’s gone in the morning. I expected it, but I’m disappointed. I’ve never been with a woman like I was with her. What we did that night left a mark on me, not just the bite-marks and the hickey on my neck, but a stain in my memory.
I can’t stop thinking about her.
It barely even bothers me when I realize my watch is missing.
Her name rings through my brain. Molly, Molly, Molly. Like the chorus to a song I’m trying to remember. Molly’s lips, Molly’s tongue, Molly’s hard nipples, Molly’s moans.
She set expectations, but sometime around the third orgasm, I forgot all about them.
But she’s gone. I try to find her, spend a few days hounding all the local Irish bars for a pretty redhead named Molly, and I find about a half dozen. None of those girls are her. I don’t want any of them. If my brothers notice anything’s off, they don’t mention it. Renzo’s busy running the Famiglia, Gian’s too madly in love with Allegra, and Carlo’s tumbling down his own hole pursuing his stupid, petty revenge. The guy gets shot one time, and he thinks every single Russian and all their Irish buddies have to die for it.
Meanwhile, I’m suffering without her.
That’s melodramatic. I’m aware. And I’m not normally an emotional guy. But I find myself back at the Sterling Duck, ignoring the stares, breathing in the cigar stench and the vomit reek, but she never appears.
“You’ve got to stop coming here.” Dante’s waiting for me one night two months after Molly changed me.
